Please write between 200 and 250 words on both of the following: (1) Explain two differences between the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court; (2) In your answer refer t

Willetts-ConsultativeArrangementsPartnership-2000

Whe the UN Charter was drafted in 1945, nongovernmental or
ganizations (NGOs) attended the San Francisco conference and
lobbied successfully to obtain Article 71, providing for "consul
tative arrangements" with the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).
There was no mention of rights in any other organ. As with many other as
pects of the UN, the current situation is very different from when the or
ganization was founded. NGOs are involved in all UN conferences; they
have encroached substantially on the General Assembly; and they are
starting to appear on the fringes of the Security Council. The range of ac
tivities in which they can engage has expanded considerably. The number
of NGOs has greatly increased, so that just over 1,700 are now officially
recognized, and there is no topic handled in any part of the UN system that
is not covered by the expertise or the advocacy concerns of at least a few
of these NGOs.1 They have gained acceptance not just on economic and
social questions but also in debates on human rights, on the environment,
and, at times, on arms control.
In the 1990s, many references appeared in UN documents to NGOs
being in "social partnership" with governments.2 Because the UN is an in
stitution where many people are highly concerned with questions of status,
the new language is significant. The term consultative status was deliber
ately chosen to indicate a secondary role?being available to give advice
but not being part of the decisionmaking process. When nonmember states
or the secretariats of other intergovernmental organizations take part in the
work of UN organs, they are referred to as observers, sometimes on an ad
hoc basis for a particular meeting and sometimes on a permanent basis.
ECOSOC has emphasized that "a clear distinction is drawn in the charter
of the United Nations between participation without vote in the delibera
tions of the council and the arrangements for consultation.

whereas governments have usually prevented NGOs from gaining the
same rights as observers. Use of the word partnership suggests we have
now reached equality between NGOs and governments, while still recog
nizing they are different and separate from each other. The question arises
as to whether the label corresponds to a significant long-term change in
the legal status of NGOs and in their ability to exercise political influence.
This article presents an overview of the evolution in the role of NGOs
in the decisionmaking procedures of the UN's main organs and assesses
what changes really are new. I aim to provide a historical perspective on
institutional change rather than an analysis of political processes. I limit
the description to the evolution of the consultative arrangements since
1945, excluding the relations between NGOs and the UN in their opera
tional activities. I argue that the developments can be regarded collectively
as converting the UN system from a world of interstate diplomacy to one
of pluralist global governance at the policymaking level.4
The ECOSOC Consultative Arrangements
The legal rights and obligations of NGOs in the UN have been outlined in
the three successive versions of the statute delimiting the consultative ar
rangements with ECOSOC.5 A major review was proposed in June 1992,
in response to the enthusiasm generated by the contribution of NGOs to
the Earth Summit.6 Among other factors, there was a general desire to find
means of incorporating environmental NGOs into the UN's activities.
Most of the changes made in July 1996 supplemented rather than amended
the provisions as they were first established in 1950. The ECOSOC statute
and the practice of the council's NGO Committee provide the UN's defi
nition of which transnational actors may be accepted as NGOs. The only
real constraints are that an NGO cannot be profit-making; it cannot advo
cate the use of violence; it cannot be a school, a university, or a political
party; and any concern with human rights must be general, rather than re
stricted to a particular communal group, nationality, or country.7 Commer
cial companies and political parties do gain access, through forming inter
national federations, which are then recognized. Although no significant
changes in the texts of the definitions have been made since 1950, a major
change in their application was agreed in 1996. NGOs that are based in a
single country, known as national NGOs, are now encouraged to apply for
special status or a place on the roster, whereas this was previously permit
ted only for a few exceptional cases.
NGO activists often suggest that significant numbers of NGOs are re
jected for political reasons, but this is not so. Until the 1990s, environmental
NGOs were considerably underrepresented, and the main reason for this was
their own lack of attention to the UN. Hostility from particular governments

ften leads to challenges and perhaps delay, but not rejection, for NGOs
concerned with human rights. Overall, very few NGOs have actually met
the criteria for recognition and then been rejected by ECOSOC.8 Many
people feel the UN has accepted too diverse a range of groups. For exam
ple, some want to exclude business groups, because they are not "true"
NGOs, and some cannot accept the U.S. National Rifle Association. For
the purposes of this article, I define an NGO as being any group that is el
igible for consultative status.
Once an NGO has gained consultative status, its representatives have
been admitted to all meetings of ECOSOC and its official subsidiary bod
ies, but until the 1990s it was relatively unusual for NGOs to obtain ac
cess to informal meetings of delegates. The rights to participate in the pro
ceedings vary according to the classification the NGO obtains. These
rights are generally used in the full council only by a few NGOs?mainly
general status organizations?and by CONGO (the Conference of Non
Governmental Organizations in Consultative Status with ECOSOC) on be
half of all the recognized NGOs. However, they are used extensively in the
subsidiary bodies. Four variables tend to determine the actual extent to
which governments allow the NGOs to participate. The smaller the deci
sionmaking body, the lower its public profile, the more technical the sub
ject matter, and the more experienced the NGO representatives, the more
likely it becomes that the NGOs can take a full part in the discussions and
exercise significant influence.
Governments and NGOs at UN Conferences
From the first days of the UN, NGOs took part in some of the specialist
UN conferences, although there was no provision for this in the charter.
From 1950 to 1996, the NGO statute specified that ECOSOC "may invite"
NGOs to conferences convened by the council, and the NGOs were sup
posed to be "entitled to the same rights" as at the council itself.9 In actual
practice, none of the conferences prior to 1996 considered themselves
bound to follow ECOSOC procedures, and no general patterns arose
whereby conferences convened by ECOSOC offered better facilities than
those convened by the assembly. Until the 1970s, NGOs generally had
considerably fewer rights at conferences than in ECOSOC, but since the
mid-1980s they have increasingly had a higher political status and better
participation opportunities than in ECOSOC. Because UN practice estab
lishes global norms for diplomatic behavior, NGOs in recent years have
even had access to most multilateral arms control negotiations.
Since the early 1970s, attendance at UN conferences has moved from
being dependent on invitations issued by the Secretariat?via "relevant"
NGOs being allowed to apply?to all NGOs recognized by ECOSOC
This content downloaded from
having an automatic right to register, with other "interested" NGOs being
able to apply. Participation in debates has increased, from a single token
speaker on the last day trying to represent the whole NGO community, to
some forums allowing NGOs to make brief interventions every morning
and afternoon. Access to decisionmaking has changed from a limited role
in the main plenary bodies to significant influence in the committees, to
NGO representatives quite often taking part in the small working groups
where the more difficult questions are thrashed out. In some fields, such as
human rights, population planning, and sustainable development, NGOs
have changed from being peripheral advisers of secondary status in the
diplomatic system to being high-status participants at the center of poli
cymaking. It is in such situations that descriptions of NGOs as being social
partners have been endorsed.
There were several major UN conferences in the first half of the 1990s
that attracted substantial attention from an exceptionally large number of
NGOs (see Table 1). After the first of these, the Earth Summit in Rio de
Janeiro, there was a widespread feeling in the environmental movement
that the ECOSOC procedures were bureaucratic, the idea of consultative
status was patronizing, and the established NGOs were unrepresentative of
grassroots popular opinion. The text of Agenda 21 gave a clear sense of
political commitment to providing access for all the groups at Rio to the
new Commission on Sustainable Development.10 This was expressed in
1993, when ECOSOC created a new subgroup, on the Roster of NGOs
from Rio, that could attend the commission but no other meetings.11 A
similar decision was then taken after the World Social Summit and the
Beijing Conference on Women to allow the new NGOs accredited at those
conferences to take part in the work of the respective commissions.12 After
the Cairo population conference, the focus was on an initiative by the UN
Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA) to establish a new NGO advisory
committee, primarily to improve the operational relationship between
UNFPA and NGOs and to monitor progress in the implementation of the
Cairo Programme of Action.13
The most radical pressures for change arose from Habitat II. During
the intersessional drafting groups of the preparatory process, NGOs had
been allowed to sit with the governments and to table amendments to the
texts, because the delegates acknowledged the central role of local author
ities in policymaking for cities. This upgraded the status of all other NGOs
at the final meeting of the Preparatory Committee. Then at the main con
ference, a unique procedure was used. While the governments negotiated
in Committee I, representatives gave a series of presentations from local
authorities, businesses, foundations, parliamentarians, academics, trade
unions, other NGOs, and UN secretariats. Instead of these events being
part of the unofficial NGO forum, they were recognized as constituting
Committee II, an integral part of the official proceedings.14 The NGO

196 From "Consultative Arrangements" to "Partnership"
also felt it had been a "real breakthrough" when their "additional sugges
tions for new text and revised text in the draft Habitat Agenda" became
the first official recognition of NGO contributions to a negotiating process,
and they were allowed to speak in support of their amendments.15 Habitat
II ended with Secretary-General Wally N'Dow making enthusiastic refer
ences to governments and their "partners in civil society."
The common feature of all these developments was the introduction
for the first time of a significant number of grassroots national NGOs to a
permanent direct relationship with the UN system. As was noted earlier, the
final outcome was for the enthusiasm to carry through to an amendment to
the ECOSOC statute for NGOs, adding paragraphs to encourage national
NGOs, "particularly from developing countries," to apply for full consulta
tive status.16 It will be some years before the impact of this change can be
assessed. Much depends on how many national NGOs have the personnel and
finances to sustain regular involvement in the UN in New York and Geneva.
The enthusiasm also generated a determination that it should never
again be necessary for NGOs to have to fight for the right to participate in
conferences. There should be general automatic rights applicable to all con
ferences, without the need to repeat the same procedural battles on each oc
casion. The principle was established successfully by the addition of a new
section to the NGO statute, specifying a standard procedure for accredita
tion by conference preparatory committees. In most respects the new pro
cedure codifies the most generous practices of the major conferences of the
1990s. For the first time, it goes beyond ECOSOC s own mandate and pro
vides for all conferences convened by any organ of the UN.
NGOs and the UN General Assembly Before 1996
The General Assembly has been confused and inconsistent in its response
to NGOs. Some governments have been very resistant to NGO involve
ment in such a high-status, public forum. Even so, NGOs have gradually
encroached on the assembly. From the earliest years, nonstate organiza
tions that were involved in conflicts have been allowed to present their
views, usually in the First Committee or the Fourth Committee of the as
sembly, to assist with debate on the one agenda item.17 From the original
codification of the system in 1950, the secretary-general has been autho
rized to provide NGOs with "appropriate seating arrangements and facili
ties for obtaining documents during public meetings of the General As
sembly dealing with matters in the economic and social fields."18 From the
1970s, NGOs have taken part in the committee work of special sessions
of the General Assembly concerned with development, disarmament,
drugs, and apartheid.
This content downloaded from
88.100.147.109 on Sun, 03 Aug 2025 08:26:42 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms

Peter Willem 197
NGOs also attend the regular sessions and attempt to influence the
proceedings in a less public manner. The facilities for access are sufficient
to make lobbying possible. (However, since the bombing of New York's
World Trade Center in February 1993, NGOs have had increasingly severe
conflicts with the UN security services about access.) In addition, although
there is no direct authority for them to do so, various subsidiary bodies of
the assembly have developed extensive relations with NGOs. This was
particularly the case from the early 1960s with the Special Committee on
Decolonization, the Special Committee Against Apartheid, and the Com
mittee on Palestinian Rights. In 1971, a subcommittee of the assembly's
Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space went so far as to formally
grant observer status at its meetings to a Category II NGO, the Interna
tional Astronautical Federation.19 (However, it is doubtful that this action
was seen then as having the significance that it would have today.) In such
situations, the NGOs have considerably greater opportunity to influence
decisions of the assembly by influencing the recommendations made by
the subsidiary body.
An interesting procedural device used in November 1993 during de
bate on the preparations for the population conference in Cairo shows how
the legitimacy of NGOs has increased beyond the formal position. In the
Second Committee of the assembly, the debate was adjourned for five
minutes to hear from Billie Miller, the head of the NGO Planning Com
mittee. Nominally, protocol was not breached: officially, no NGO partici
pation occurred.20 This is not the only occasion such an approach has been
used.21
In 1990, for the first time, an individual NGO gained recognition in
the General Assembly, when the International Committee of the Red Cross
became an observer. This was a deliberate honor, granted "in considera
tion of the special role and mandates conferred upon it by the Geneva Con
ventions."22 Another distinct case, the Sovereign Order of Malta, was ac
cepted in 1994. Although it behaves like an NGO in giving humanitarian
assistance, the order has pr?tentions to statehood and at that time had
diplomatic recognition as a state from sixty-four UN members.23 A few
months later, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies also became an observer, although?unlike the two previous
cases?it has no special legal status.24 As soon as the third case was pro
posed, the United States took counteraction and requested that the overall
question of the criteria for granting observer status be placed on the
agenda.25 The assembly agreed to place a general block on any more
NGOs being recognized.26 Although this decision in December 1994 ap
parently closed the door behind the three exceptional cases, preventing a
general influx of NGOs to observer status, the debate on the role of NGOs
in the assembly was not closed.
This content downloaded from